"Gordon R. Dickson - Call him lord" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

The eyes flashed wide, the laugh fadedthen returned.
"What can I do?" The wide shoulders shrugged. "I give in
always I give in. Well, almost always." He grinned up at
Kyle, his lips thinned, but frank. "All right."
He turned to the geldingand with a sudden leap was in
the saddle. The gelding snorted and plunged at the shock;
then steadied as the young man's long fingers tightened
expertly on the reins and the fingers of the other hand patted
a gray neck. The Prince raised his eyebrows, looking over at
Kyle, but Kyle sat stolidly.
"I take it you're armed good Kyle?" the Prince said slyly.
"You'll protect me against the natives if they run wild?"
"Yolir life is in my hands. Lord," said Kyle. He unsealed
the leather jacket at the bottom and let it fall open to show
the slug pistol in its holster for a moment. Then he resealed
the jacket again at the bottom.
"Will" The tutor put his hand on the young man's knee.
"Don't be reckless, boy. This is Earth and the people here
don't have rank and custom like we do. Think before you"
"Oh, cut it out, Monty!" snapped the Prince. "I'll be just as
incognito, just as humble, as archaic and independent as the
rest of them. You think I've no memory! Anyway, it's only
for three days or so until my Imperial father joins me. Now,
let me go!"
He jerked away, turned to lean forward in the saddle, and
abruptly put the gelding into a bolt for the gate. He disap-
peared through it, and Kyle drew hard on the stallion's reins
as the big white horse danced and tried to follow.
"Give me his saddlebags," said Kyle.
The tutor bent and passed them up. Kyle made them fast
on top of his own, across the stallion's withers. Looking
down, he saw there were tears in the bearded man's eyes.
"He's a fine boy. You'll see. You'll know he is!" Montia-
ven's face, upturned, was mutely pleading.
"I know he comes from a fine family," said Kyle, slowly.
"I'll do my best for him." And he rode off out of the gateway
after the gelding.
When he came out of the gate, the Prince was nowhere in
sight. But it was simple enough for Kyle to follow, by dinted
brown earth and crushed grass, the marks of the gelding's
path. This brought him at last through some pines to a grassy
 open slope where the Prince sat looking skyward through a
single-lens box.
When Kyle came up, the Prince lowered the instrument
and, without a word, passed it over. Kyle put it to his eye and
looked skyward. There was the whir of the tracking unit and
one of Earth's three orbiting power stations swam into the
field of vision of the lens.
"Give it back," said the Prince.
"I couldn't get a look at it earlier," went on the young man